Left-Wing Blogger Now Admits McCain Appears to Have Been Victim of Perjury

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Liar, Liar

The left-wing blog Think Progress has had to eat its words after claiming presidential candidate John McCain plagiarized.

An entry posted Thursday — under the heading "Corrupt Establishments" — claims that McCain lifted parts of a speech given by retired Navy Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer. During a Wednesday speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council McCain said, "When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue."

The site compared that to Ziemer's words, "War is awful and when nations seek to resolve their differences by fighting, a million tragedies ensue.”

The site listed three other instances where McCain copied parts of Ziemer's 1996 speech. The problem is McCain has been using these lines since 1995. The site has since posted an apology saying, "It appears Ziemer's speech may have been plagiarized from McCain... the senator used these lines before Ziemer... we regret the error."

Not a Bright Assessment

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave a bleak assessment of the Iraq war at the University of Florida on Wednesday. Albright called it, "The greatest disaster in American foreign policy." She then added, "I think it's worse than Vietnam — not in the number of Americans who died — or Vietnamese versus Iraqis — but in terms of those unintended consequences. And the biggest unintended consequence in Iraq is Iran. I think one might say that Iran has actually won the war in Iraq."

Albright — who has been an outspoken critic of the war — then took the argument to the troops saying they are, "both the solution and the problem. They are like fly paper that attracts everybody who hates us."

Refreshed Rationale

Now an update on a story we told you about earlier in the week. According to district superintendent Lynn Steenblock, concern for "student safety" is now the reason Forest Lake Area High School in Minnesota canceled a visit by touring war veterans. However, police Sergeant Greg Weiss said, "At no time was student safety mentioned to the chief of police or to our assigned liaison officer at the high school."

And on Monday, the school's principle Steve Massey failed to mention security as an issue when he explained the event was becoming too political — which he said "would be inappropriate in a public setting."

The event's organizer Pete Hegseth — who graduated from the school in 1999 and served in Iraq — says the tour was merely intended to be a classroom discussion about military service. He calls the ordeal "extremely unfortunate."

Vague Volunteer

And finally — when a young volunteer turned up at a Clinton campaign office in Erie, Pennsylvania, staffers requested that he sign the mandatory sign-in sheet. But, the man seemed leery of signing his name and displayed what some called sketchy behavior.

After some time, he agreed, and asked the volunteers if they were "cutting turf." That's campaign lingo for handing out literature.

The suspicious staffers later searched the man's name on Google, Facebook and finally the federal elections commission Web site. As it turns out, the man is an Obama volunteer who receives standard student campaign cash for his work. And when the Clinton staffers called the Obama office in Erie — guess who answered. You got it — Sam Glenzer — the young man in question. He responded, "I was just there to check things out."

— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.